Thursday, August 24, 2006

Why why WHY do some people in posession of Y chromosomes feel compelled to to share their...assessments with every passing female? Oh I have breasts? Really! Never noticed them. Thanks for the UPDATE, CAVEMAN!

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Ok, so I got paid yesterday. Let's recap. I work at a TENNIS camp. I took the paycheck, deposited it, and, now that I had an actual balance...ran to Sports Authority and purchased...tennis clothes.

It's a viscious cycle.

I play tennis. They pay me. I have money. There's pretty tennis clothes, which I ostensibly have a use for...because I have to go to work everyday.

Aaaaaaaand...tennis clothes are useful for so much more than actually. EVERYONE hangs out in their tennis attire for hours. Playing tennis in the evening? Well...you should get ready early! It's a socially acceptable excuse for us to prance around in short skirts and tight shirts. What? I was working out. It's healthy!

I played on a high school team for four years. Every season, the most dramatic point was when we chose our uniform. It was of the utmost importance because our skirts and tank tops became our default attire for the school day to "show our spirit" for upcoming matches.

I'm not saying it was the first thing on everyone's mind. But evolution makes for pervasive little subconsious notions. And no other girls can hiss "slut" in the hall if it's your team clothing, ohmygawd.

So if you'll excuse me, I have to go buy a shorter, flouncier skirt. My others are too long! They get in the way when I'm playing! They restrict my athletically-motivated movement!

Oh look, my tennis shoes untied. Guess I'll have to take care of that...what are you LOOKING at?

Monday, August 21, 2006

OOOOooooooooooooohhhhhhhh I went to six flags today and I'm STILL HIGH. Superman: Ride of Steel is possibly the greatest thing on the planet.

I love roller coasters and anything like them. If you can be launched out of it, ski down it, climb up it, make it go really fast, or any combination of the above, I'm so there. It's about hacking your body, similar, I suppose, to coffee. "Surviving" the perceived threat of the roller coaster triggers a flight or flight response and an accompanying adrenalin rush.

The demands of the general public have, thankfully, encouraged innovation with roller coasters. New designs like floorless, suspended, inverted, launched, flying, or pipeline show more and more ways to scare and disoriented us. Sick as some of those coasters look, I'm still a sucker for the classic--a really big-ass drop.

Superman handily meets this requirement, sending riders plummeting 221 feet at an incredibly steep angle. This produces for the rider more than ten seconds of what is known by coaster buffs as "airtime." The technical description is that you feel weightless. The actual description....well, I'll try.

To get the full experience, you MUST put your hands over your head. As you crest the hill and gaze down at the teeny looking surroundings, every reflex you have is telling you not to, which is exactly why you should. And you FALL. You're more than floating because you're moving so rapidly. Many people try to simplify it as your "stomach coming up into your throat" but it's more than that. You feel like you're being torn apart--not painfully, but like your body is being converted into pure light energy. You're dancing on a molecular level. It's like dying and being born simultaneously. It's like living everything in one instant.

It's like getting out of the cars and not quite being able to walk yet because you haven't collected yourself from 221 feet up.

It's like the smile you can't seem to lose.

It fades, sadly, but it takes a while, and it's so tempting to get back in line. You want to live your whole life like that, up so high, but it would be too intense for your mortal self, body and mind.

But when it gets bad, you can remember what it was like to fly.

And then you can go home and write a trying-way-too-hard-to-be-poignant post that REEKS of your very teenageness on your by-definition-narcissistic blog.

But you don't really care that it sounds dumb, because you went on fucking Superman.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

I made a huge tactical error today.I gave a piggyback to Sarah.Sarah is five and teeny.I forgot, however, that if you give a piggyback to one kid, IT’S NOT FAIR.Even if some of the other kids are twelve and taller than you.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

In an effort to keep the kids remotely interested in tennis instead of, say, a passing earthworm at the back of the court, we play a lot of games.Several games require choosing a kid to be “It” first.Oh joy.

Kids do not accept guessing the number that I am thinking of.I obviously changed the number when they guessed right.

Kids do not accept spinning a racket.I spun it wrong.

Kids do not accept me pointing at someone with my eyes closed.I peeked.

Rocks-paper-scissors shoot, however?That’s law.

I suppose that a more motivated person would analyze that the child is more “involved” in that process and thus feels a greater sense of “control,” making him less likely to question the outcome of the decision.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

It takes a pro to trip over a DDR mat, smash her foot on a filing cabinet, lose her balance and collapse into the chair, sail halfway across the room riding said chair, crash into a table, and THEN fall out of the chair.

Saturday, August 12, 2006

That’s right people. I oooooooooooown.I am the master of six year-old psychology.*inhales*Ok, I’m calm now.

As I mentioned, I teach tennis to small, charming children.I’ve held several jobs as instructor of one kind of sport or another, and have thus noticed that this job comes with one “extra-fun” aspect:PICKING UP THE GODDAMN BALLS.

Think about it.Soccer, baseball, football, basketball—they all use one ball per TWO TEAMS of kids—maybe a few extra for passing practice.You rarely exceed the golden ratio of one ball per kid.Tennis, in the infinite wisdom of the bored upper-class who designed the damn game, requires, oh……FIFTY balls per kid.I have a small hopper and it holds over 300 of the elusive things.Convincing the six year olds to pick them up?A challenge.

There’s a few tricks that we all use.“Oh, let’s see if you guys can BREAK THE WORLD RECORD TIME for picking up the balls!!!”(The world record time is, conveniently, exactly two seconds more than however long it takes them.)

You can encourage them to build pyramids on their rackets.(Highly prone to backfiring when said pyramids inevitably collapse, rescatteirng the balls.)

The above is NOT the surest way to backfire.That honor belongs to having a contest for whoever picks up the most balls.They WILL figure out that it is easier to steal the balls from each others’ rackets.

So.Amidst all of these half-failures, there has emerged one winner.The strong.The victorious.THE method.As the creator, I like to refer to it as “Lying through one’s teeth.”

It’s very simple.When it’s time to pick up the balls, I don’t say anything.I start to pick them up myself.Slowly.

Eventually, one child (8 to 5 that it’s a girl)will start to also pick up the balls and/or ask me what I’m doing.Acting at this point is key.

“Oh no,” I say in a serious tone.“Only grown-ups can pick up the balls.You guys just wait ‘till I’m done.”

Did I just see seven kids with ARMFULS of balls?Oh yeah.

I can pretend not to notice for two or three rotations, which is about an hour.When I “see” them yellow-handed, I usually announce in a low tone that since they were SO GOOD today and SO GROWN-UP, we can keep it a secret.(For maximum effect, pinky-swear.)

I suppose I shouldn’t be so proud of outsmarting a group of first-graders, but I no longer really care.

Monday, August 07, 2006

I had a major assignment that was a senior graduation requirement.Given my aweomse time management skills, it was done in an…interesting frame of mind.The WORST part was not the thesis paper.It was the “process” journals that were supposed to be pre-writing.Mine, of course wound up being post-writing.I lie.

So, at that point, I was at the really interesting part of a two day no sleep/caffeine high and the journals were…interesting.I was actually kind of proud of my crazy ranting because it was a pretty good representation not only of my point, but of my frame of mind at the time.Often seen, rarely captured.

Long story short:SHE DIDN’T READ THE JOURNALS.Probably a good thing.Less work for her, better grades for us.But…I WROTE IT DAMMIT.READ IT.

So.When my blog becomes amazingly famous and I retire to live off the ad revenue, I will have an audience.In preparation for that time, I’ve uploaded the paper and the journals. It’s a freaky insight into the mind of someone who’s really really really really really really really really really chemically and just in general beyond reality.But I’m not dead yet so it isn’t artistic.Whatever.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

2.Rush into work to discover that you have forgotten the granola bar you were going to eat for breakfast.

3.And your water bottle.

4.Glare at the thermometer that ALREADY reads 95 degrees, IN THE SHADE.

5.Discover that one of your co-workers is sick, screwing up the rotation, and that you will have to again take the youngest group of kids.

6.Realize that it’s the day of the dreaded “groundstroke test.”(This involves EACH KID hitting, or in most cases not hitting, twenty balls in specified areas of the court.Organizing the targets takes forever, the kids refuse to stay in line, and it sucks big time.)

7.Examine contents of tennis bag.Offer other co-worker a broken hair elastic, four nickels, three extra grips, a wristband, and one slightly used can of bug spray in exchange for trading groups of kids.

8.Get brutally shot down.

9.Inadvertently choose the basket that is secretly broken and spills the balls every five minutes.

10.Snap at the fifth kid who informs you that “it’s hooooooooooooooooot.I don’t wanna.”

11.Take water breaks every five minutes.Ignore scowling boss.

12.Consider hiring self out as lawn sprinkler, based on perspiration level.

12.Convince children that the groundstroke test will be “fun.”Clap hand over mouth of repeat camper who knows better.

13.Organize court, sweaty line of children for groundstroke test.

14.Hit three balls to first kid.

15.Regret frequent water breaks when three children announce that they have to go to the bathroom.

16.Scout around for boss to see if she can take the aforementioned whiny kids.

17.Boss absent.Suspect she has sneaked off to car or other air-conditioned place.

18.Gather entire group of six-year olds.Schlep approximatley six hundred miles to building with bathrooms.

19.Arrive at building.Take headcount.

20.Corrall adventurous child still in parking lot.

21.Corrall other children running down hallway in opposite direction of bathrooms.

22.Ask children not using bathroom if they are SURE they don’t have to go.

23.Suggest they should maybe check anyway.

24.They’re sure, right?

25.Plod six hundred miles back to courts.

26.Begin to re-set up for groundstroke test.

27.Chase down errant targets that children on other court are now using for hats.

28.Restart groundstroke test.

29.Lie to suddenly present boss that you’re “almost done” with the test.Yes, I know we’re supposed to be done by 11.Don’t worry!”